Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thought I was to have the unenviable task of being the last speaker and trying to keep you awake, a Cheann Comhairle. However, that particular burden has not fallen on my shoulders. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform quoted Seamus Heaney. I believe Seamus Heaney was actually paraphrasing Václav Havel, the former president of Czechoslovakia. He might have been better quoting from a poem by Seamus Heaney if we are going to quote him. I am reluctantly quoting because I agree with a previous speaker today that he is misquoted and misused in the Dáil, but I think it is particularly relevant. A quote from the "From the Republic of Conscience" might have been a better one for the Minister to use today. Among other things in that poem, he said:

At their inauguration, public leaders

must swear to uphold unwritten law and weep

to atone for their presumption to hold office -

Clearly, I am no expert on poetry but it is a call for self-reflection and it is a call for us to look at our consciences.

I absolutely acknowledge that there are good things in the budget. Time is limited and will be stopping in time for Deputy McNamara. Let me acknowledge that first and then let me use my time as a Member of the Opposition as an Independent voice for Galway West. The reason I was elected was to think, analyse and put forward a different vision. When I knocked on doors, I did not promise to reduce tax. However, I promised to push with every fibre of my being for an alternative vision for this country. I believe that is possible and that is what I want to do here today.

When we look at this budget and the good things that are in it, we ask what the context of that is. We are talking about spending €11 billion one way or another. Prices had started to rise significantly well before the appalling and illegal invasion of Ukraine but steps were not taken. I stand here for my seventh budget and I have waited foolishly and innocently for that budget to be part of a transformative action for our country that would make it more equal. That need for transformation became all the more acute with the declaration of a climate emergency. We have used these words "transformative action". Last year the Minister said that the planet is burning. Today, climate change goes to page 15 of his speech. The planet is still burning.

We have had the Covid pandemic and we were supposed to learn from that that we should never go back to how things were - transformative action about public health. The measures we introduced gave us a little insight into what was possible. The basic payment of €350, the ban on evictions and the ban on rent increases have all gone by the board and we are back to saying the market will provide. We are accused of having a particular ideology. I stand here and say that I have no ideology. I believe in an equal society, which is the better society in terms of health and advantages. What we have is a most unequal society and without the social welfare budget over €20 billion, it would be even more unequal. Let us consider the framework of today's budget. We failed to bring in a cap to stop evictions.

We failed to cap energy prices. We also failed to bring in a windfall tax. We do this with a background of Barnardos, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Social Justice Ireland, Oxfam, the CSO, representatives of people with disabilities and other organisations including UNICEF, telling us that families have to make difficult choices between energy and food. More than two thirds of parents of children in primary school and three quarters of parents of children in secondary school are worried about meeting costs this year. I welcome the measures that were introduced, but it is against this background.

Social Justice Ireland stated that 19%, 935,182 people, including 300,000 children, are below the poverty line when housing costs are factored in. The Central Statistics Office's, CSO's, data from June show that those with less income spend a higher proportion of it on food and transport. Among other points that were made, those in households with the lowest income experienced higher annual inflation. According to the CSO, the average wages in Ireland are approximately €50,000, with 64% earning less than the mean. The median earnings are €40,000. Then we have the working poor. That is based on CSO figures. Some 167,400 employees are reporting as being on the national minimum wage, or less. That is 7.8% of all employees.

Then we look at the Government's ideology on housing. It was stated that we would provide housing. I cannot remember the name of the Labour Party housing strategy. What have we got? Once again, we have the highest figure for homelessness. The Government's policy has normalised homelessness. The number of homeless was 10,568 on 31 July. It was a little bit higher again in August - a higher figure than the previously recorded highest figure in October 2019. I will come back to that if I have a chance.

An ESRI paper in June 2022 on energy poverty and deprivation estimated that recent energy inflation has increased expenditure based measures on energy poverty to almost 30%. The report goes on in that vein, but I do not have the time to go into it. Dr. Micheál Collins from UCD, who did a report on the hidden costs of poverty for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, estimated it to be €4.5 billion. That is just to serve the cost of poverty. If we bring in domestic violence, the conservative estimate is that it is €2.4 billion per year.

Let us look at mental health. Extrapolating from figures in Northern Ireland and England, it costs us up to €12 billion. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, might have a particular interest in this. I accept there is an increase, but it is nowhere near the recommended percentage. The Inspector of Mental Health Services, Dr. Susan Finnerty, of the Mental Health Commission, stated that every single year people with a serious mental illness will typically die between 15 and 20 years earlier than someone without a mental illness. Their physical illnesses are largely preventable. In Galway city, people were waiting on an orthopaedic list from 2019 to 2021 to be triaged, and they must wait another two years to get the service. There is a proposal to close the District Hospital in Clifden, which provides respite. The number on trolleys today in a centre of excellence in Galway is 50. There are 624,444 people on the National Treatment Purchase Fund waiting list. The cost of disability payment is nowhere to be seen, even though it was the most minimal request from those representing the various disability groups on the ground. This is a disaster of a budget in terms of transformative action. It is the greatest giveaway budget on one level. That is fundamentally the problem - it is because it is not based on a framework of transformative change.

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